TUSCALOOSA,
Alabama — Game week is moving right along as Alabama's 7 p.m. Saturday visit
from LSU approaches.

Crimson
Tide coach Nick Saban will make one more public appearance before Saturday in
Thursday night's "Hey Coach" radio show.

Saban
typically arrives at 7 p.m., so the live updates will kick off then.

Refresh for updates.

-- "Some of the things that happen to me in the media isn't right," Saban said, but media guest Tom Rinaldi doesn't buy into that. (Rinaldi asked him about the Texas report).

-- Zach Mettenberger is playing more consistently this year and he's moving well in the pocket.

-- The balance LSU has makes them difficult to defend.

-- Asked about Amari Cooper, Saban says the WR group played well overall. Cooper's practiced well and played well in the past two weeks.

-- Peewee from Grand Bay got a shoutout for his AL.com story. He asked about the offensive line and the center. Will there be a chance to rotate centers? Saban says that's not likely because they want to keep the continuity. But Chad Lindsay is very capable if needed.

-- Safety Landon Collins "did more different things than anyone on our team." Saban lists special teams, dime, free safety and strong safety among the jobs he's held. He's back playing dime now. "The guy has never skipped a beat."

-- "That's Joe Walsh, baby," Saban says in response to comment about an Eagles song. He offers to play the air guitar.

-- Has he seen 60 Minutes yet? "I'm ashamed to say I haven't seen the 60 Minutes piece." But received "thousands" of notes about it.

-- Freshman RB Derrick Henry made a lot of progress this year. He's an interesting guy because he broke all the records in high school, he never blocked or ran pass routes. So all of it was new to him here.

-- Asked about bullying: Saban said the team is like family and they want the younger guys to buy in.

-- "I didn't like the team chemistry at the beginning of the season."

-- Saban called players in and said they had to talk to five teammates and ask how they feel, what's the problem, show some understanding and tell them how they handled. He said this was before the third game or so. Communication improved a lot since then.

-- Players don't have to practice if they don't want to. Saban says they can go stand in the box and watch. He's sent two to the box so far.

-- On OJ Howard: Saban said his blocking and toughness has improved. He just never had to do that in the past because he was always more of a receiver. Howard is a real mismatch problem for other teams.

-- Does he have time to visit with recruits before or after the game? Well he didn't get right to the question. There will be a lot of players on campus with several official visits planned.

-- There are more distractions at home than on the road. Opponents are faceless.

-- Saban said talk about the coach leaving "is a bunch of BS."

-- Now we're talking about boxing, Vito and somebody else.

-- "We live in a stats-oriented world, especially in the media." (We're taking a good lickin' tonight).

-- More people should recognize AJ McCarron, Saban says.

-- Saban says he doesn't feel any more pressure now than when he was a player or coaching unsuccessful teams.

-- Pretty much everything is clutter, including this.

-- Saban "probably won't" watch Stanford-Oregon.

-- Doing the radio show is like going to a wedding every week. He sees few humans outside of football from church Sunday until Thursday's radio show.

-- This is one strange show.

-- Questioner in crowd asks for a motivational speech. He goes one.

-- Again, crazy show this week.

-- Saban gets worked up talking about freshmen who can't deal with playing.